Park City Council made social equity a critical priority in March and quickly came to a consensus they needed someone to take the lead, so they sent out a request for proposals. Even with a budget of $100,000, the city only received two proposals. Melissa Allison has more:
Park City council members have met monthly with Facilitator Kilo Zamora since March to better understand what social equity is and what role they should take in it.
Though they’ve yet to define what social equity means in Park City, they do agree the city needs convener – a person or an organization to move the priority forward.
The city is currently considering the two proposals they’ve received.
The city budgeted $100,000 for the critical priority. KPCW asked if the total amount was going to be awarded to the convener, but Assistant City Manager Matt Dias says he was not a part of those discussions.
“We were thinking that it would be either an organization or a number of individuals who would kind of band together and make a proposal," Dias said. "So, I don’t know, I don’t know what the proposals came in if they came in at $50,000, or $80,000 or $20,000. I won’t actually know until they award the contract.”
As for what the role the city wants the convener to take on – Dias said they’re asking for someone who can give social equity the attention council can’t.
“Really what we’re asking for, similar to the Mental Health Alliance Coalition is, a location where the social equity work can be done in the community," Dias said. "So, our hope is to have several individuals working on various initiatives for people in the community that feel underserved or maybe unrepresented. Are there places we need to be allocating our resources more strategically that can support these populations that have typically not been represented or not been heard in our community. And so, the city doesn’t really have the support to do that and we’re thinking if we bring some people together with an outside entity that they can be the vehicle to make this change and move this initiative forward.”
There is a study session for social equity on Thursday, but council won’t make a decision until September.
I’m Melissa Allison, KPCW News.